There will be much much more to read on the future of Fianna Fail over the next while, but O’Donoghues speech gave an indication of how much Fianna Fail have depended on patronage and The Parish Pump to keep in power.

Over the past few weeks, I’m sure too you will have got leaflets or personally addressed letters detailing all the local achievements of Fianna Fail.

That Patronage is gone for the foreseeable future.

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It’s my second favourite FF response to defeat of the week.
My very favourite is Martin threatening to take revenge on SF by bringing FF over the border. Considering FF can’t even outpoll SF in the North of Martin’s native city, this may not quite be the terrifying prospect for the republican movement he thinks it is.

Of cours the irony wasn’t lost on the people in the hall at all. It just made seeing him lose all the more fun. There is a ferocious level of communal glee about FF’s disaster out there. It’s a bit like an electoral version of the 1990 World Cup.

I think it’s got a lot to do with the fact that FF governed throughout the crisis with very low levels of public support and seemed to adopt a, “f**k you, we’re in power,” attitude. Whatever’s coming down the line, I don’t think we’ll see quite the same level of imperial disdain. We would, of course, if the Bruton/Varadkar/Hayes/Creighton wing of FG were calling the shots (Hayes old sense of entitlement got a nice run out when he was elected in Dublin SW and seemed under the impression that FG would be governing on their own.) But there was something uniquely arrogant about the last government in its dying days which made people think that the most important thing about the election was the opportunity it afforded to punish FF. Given the brutal times ahead, a couple of days schadenfreude is understandable.

That makes sense. You can even still see remnants of that. I’m told the last two weeks or so were used by FF to unpick as best as was possible some of the legislation enacted across the last few years that they were..ahem… less keen on.

[…] “….this magnificent sports complex – which I helped to build … “I hope that the irony will not be lost upon you that I stand here, on my evening of defeat, in a hall – this magnificent sports complex – which I helped to build.” (http://www.rte.ie/player/#v= and Forward to to see it) . […]